Grace
by PhoenixMerton
Summary: "She is filled with hate all for him, just like her mother, and he hates how much it still stings." A combination of an If they lived AU and a female Harry from Snape's perspective. Please r&r my lovely readers!


**Disclaimer:** Almost all characters belong to the wonderful JKR.

* * *

Her hair fell down her back like waves of a golden waterfall, a delicate mix of a light red-brown, the summer sun illuminating a few blessed strands with a golden hue that bled into the indecisive combination of colors. The sun had simultaneously dusted her normally fair skin with a tan almost indecipherable to the naked eye and had brought out the lightest dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose that one could only see if one looked close enough. Her eyes matched her hair, a hazel that swirled mischievously, an intangible concoction rimming the edges with a dark blue, blending into a smooth band of green, a mixture of golden brown surrounding her pupils. Her lips were full, the subtlest shade of pink, and he watched them with cold, calculating dark eyes as they opened and she threw her head back as she laughed at whatever Weasley had just said.

She was stunning.

She was also a Potter.

* * *

She was the perfect mixture of her parents, in terms of her looks. Her personality was all Lily.

When he had first seen her enter the Great Hall that fateful September 1st, he had almost missed her. Well he couldn't have missed her. All eyes seemed to be drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She radiated kindness, eyes alight with awe and eleven year old giggles, but more importantly with comfort, which she graciously extended to the other apprehensive first year girls she had just met, despite the obvious nerves her entire being shook with.

The nerves began to take over her as the names dwindled from the C's to the J's to "Patil."

When Minerva's stoic voice had called out "Potter," a deafening silence had fallen over the hall. The little girl, knobby-knees shaking, climbs the steps and the stares of the other children desperately try to catch a glimpse of the infamous scar, dubiously hidden behind long bangs covering her forehead.

She sat, feet dangling dangerously, anxiously, off the edge of the stool as Minerva placed the hat on her head. He looked on as her eyes closed and her forehead scrunched, concentrating intently on delivering some sort of message.

"Gryffindor!", the hat bellows low and deep and he watches as her face breaks into a breathtaking smile, identical to the ones Lily would give him all those years ago when he had been the one to share good news. He is entranced, shamelessly entranced with this eleven year old mystery who is so enticingly similar to a redhead he used to know, even if in mannerism only.

He looks away abruptly, because she is not Lily, only a painful reminder of what he no longer has.

He vows to avoid the sheer notion of her existence. Her spirit is toxic.

* * *

Throughout the years she has changed, developed into a no less enchanting woman. Gone are the bangs that hide the scar. At sixteen she has grown into her own skin and only cleverly hides the scar with concealment charms when venturing off to important venues, like the Yule Ball, or the countless dates he has seen her embark on to Hogsmeade with various Quidditch stars he doesn't remember keeping track of until he does.

Avoiding her seemed to be impossible, if only for the fact that she insists on torturing him by continuously taking his class year after year.

He overheard Minerva saying she wants to be an Auror, a stupid career that she has no doubt picked up from her stupid father and his stupid influence.

Her equally stupid brother is easier to hate. He comes a few years after her, and he is all Potter. All looks, all mannerisms, down to every trouble-loving bone. On the rarest of occasions he sees Lily, but never the kindness his sister exhibits. It's Lily's temper he sees in him the most, and that temper, mostly directed at his Slytherin classmates is tainted by the bitter memories it drags up that scream "Potter". He enjoys vindictively throwing detentions his way, grabbing him by his collar and dragging him up to Minerva's office, and failing him for the smallest of incorrect marks. Even if it is relayed to him through Dumbledore that the boy's parents have made complaint upon complaint against him, protesting for his removal from his duties.

That's why it's unfair that his sister is brilliant.

She is a Prefect, a shoe-in for Head Girl next year, and the Quidditch captain two years running. She is the top of each of her classes, her mother's talent for charms and potions, her father's for transfiguration.

The first day she entered his class it was evident Lily had been tutoring her. No offspring of Potter's could have been this gifted at the art of potions, even if it had a mixture of Lily lurking beneath the surface. It is another reminder that she is Lily's.

She had known the answers to each of his questions, aces every one of his exams, and extends such kindness to those around her that he cannot hate her. He manages to act like he does though.

Because she is not perfect by any standards. Her record, while not riddled with detentions like her brothers, is not exactly clean. He watches her enter classes exhausted, skirt crumpled and short, blouse smelling of firewhiskey and an odd mixture of fresh ink, like freshly done homework and residue of a party, but he and certainly no other professor seems to comment, mostly for lack of proof. She seems to be Gryffindor's resident party girl, and he can't blame them for electing her, not when she radiates such kindness. No, her record is shot to hell thanks to her defiance of Dolores last year, (which he couldn't blame, but her methods of defiance were not short of her father's idiocity when she formed that stupid club and taking the position of leader). But she has picked quite a few arguments in his class, and he relishes each opportunity she takes. Unfortunately, she only takes the ones to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and he condemns her warmth for its inability to stay buried.

He sends cold glares at her when she so much as whispers, openly mocks her mistakes (as far and few between as they are), and desperately tries to coexist with her in a way that is least harmful to his fragile insides.

He hates to admit it but she is slowly wearing him down.

* * *

It is her seventh year and he cannot wait to be ride of her.

More Potters have joined her and her delinquent brother, two more boys who make him sick to his stomach. He's learning all of the Potter boys do. He wants the Potters out of his life forever.

That's when she knocks on his door.

He opens it, and is immediately shocked by the guest on the other side. He considers slamming the door in her face.

"Professor," she addresses politely, though he knows she cannot stand him and his treatment of her and her classmates, "May I speak with you?"

"About what?", his word are biting, eyes glaring. Doesn't she know he wants nothing to do with her?

"About potions,", her tone is short and clipped.

"If your thick, pigheaded skull cannot comprehend the material taught in class today Potter," he begins, "I am afraid I will be of no help. I've had no success in teaching those as pea-brained as yourself. Look at your poor excuse of a brother."

He watches her eyes narrow, fists clench, jaw set, teeth sucking in and biting down on the inside of her lip of the right side of her mouth, just like Lily's . She is filled with hate all for him, just like her mother, and he hates how much it still stings.

"I need a recommendation," she manages through narrowed lips to match her narrow eyes, "For a ministry internship."

"And why do you think I would write you one?" he smirks, "I only write recommendations for those who have put in six months time to be my assistants in brewing class potions, and you Potter have been woefully absent, inflating your ego to the height of your broomstick."

Her nostrils flare. She takes a deep breath.

She smiles sickly sweet, "Do you happen to be looking for an assistant? I'm available Tuesday evenings to brew."

His face morphs into some version of an answering smile, "Unfortunately Potter I just don't think your work is quite up to standard."

He watches her eyes dim, coming off her rage and into disappointment and he can't help but notice the green is brighter in her hazel tonight. She has never looked more like Lily.

He slams the door in her face.

He has seen that disappointed look from Lily too many times.

* * *

The next Wednesday morning he finds an impeccably brewed Pepper Up potion sitting on his desk, just in time for his Wednesday morning lesson with the first years.

He is begrudgingly thankful.

* * *

He finds the correct potion brewed on his desk every Wednesday morning. The day before the potioneers internship application is due he subtly drops a recommendation on Minerva's desk with the name "Potter" on top.

He actually drops two, in case one has to go to the Auror department.

The potions don't stop appearing until the end of year, even after he drops off her recommendation.

It is a reminder of the extent of her kindness. Of her mother's kindness. Of which he does not deserve.

That night, he removes every painful memory concerning Lily Evans Potter. The girl can't be a reminder if he has nothing for her to remind him of.

* * *

His fondness of the only Potter girl has grown, much to his dismay. He finds his mind wandering to her occasionally, wondering if she got her internship.

He lays off her the slightest bit in class. He ignores her like the plague, instead if purposefully antagonizing her.

But that does it mean his beliefs have changed. His teaching methods remain the same. He praises his own House and demeans Gryffindor any way he can. He emphasizes Longbottom's mistakes to the entire class (the poor boy is just too stupid for his own good and doesn't deserve magic) and makes fun of Granger's teeth when Malfoys hexes her. He attends dinner at Lucius's every week, and engages in dehumanizing conversations for dessert. The dark lord had vanished 17 years ago, but the power Severus gains from his connections have not.

It is a Tuesday's evening after class when he catches her. She'd been dropping off her weekly potion, a stewing mandrake for the end of the first year curriculum, and he, the brilliant past Death Eater that he was, had left his cabinet with his pensive open.

To his horror, he's discovered her that Tuesday evening, head just emerging from the pensive with a look of utmost shock across her face. His rage was uncontrollable.

Her mouth gapes open in horror, for her parent's behavior, for her own as she tries to form some sort of excuse.

"Having fun Potter?" His voice is low and biting as uncontrollable rage flows through him. He has never felt this way before, can never remember feeling this way before, as his anger controls his every thought and action and blocks out the rest of his rational memory.

"Amusing man, your father, wasn't he?" he advances on her and she stumbles back from him, ending on the ground, mouthing words her voice cannot not from. But he knows she has just seen the most humiliating parts of his life and he is blinded by the red he sees clouding his vision.

"You will not tell anyone what you saw." He is quite, simmering with animosity, and watches her desperate attempts to stand and fix her uniform, but she is a bumbling idiot and he wants her out of his sight.

"Out," he said, low and deathly calm.

The girl with the golden mixture of hair does not move, swirling eyes staring at him. This time he can only see hazel.

"GET OUT!" he bellows and she flinches, running from his classroom.

* * *

He doubles his effort to humiliate her during class. He tries to convince himself he sees Potter when he looks at her, in her hazel eyes, her knobby knees. But the eyes are always just a little too green when they turn their judgemental, shameful gaze on him. It is the gaze that mocks him most. She looks at him like her mother does, like Lily does, and he has never felt such a conflict in his feelings toward an individual.

The rest of the year is uneventful.

* * *

He is forced to acknowledge her presence at graduation. He sits, on his most hated day of the year, and contemplates how many potions ingredients he will need for the upcoming semester as the head boy drones on in his humdrum speech of the importance of education.

When the head girl steps up, she lights up the room. Her speech forgoes any mention of education, instead focusing on the importance of unity, a speech that is so like the message her father has been singing as of the war, that he wants to scoff. Where was his calling for unity during his years at school, when he hung upside down from his ankles every other day?

So he sits, bitter and lost in thought as ungrateful teenager after ungrateful teenages steps onto the stage and shakes Minerva and Dumbledore's hands.

When the ceremony ends, he cannot leave the venue fast enough. As Dumbledore's last words finish, and each family begins to stand and congratulate each student, he gets up quickly and makes his way outside through the back exit, away from all the loving chaos he despises so.

But lost in all his thoughts, he has forgotten. It is ironic that he has finally forgotten the one thing he has been trying to forget for 29 years, only to have it thrust so brutally in front of him once more.

Because there on the Hogwarts green, standing by the lake and that infamous beech tree, illuminated by the sunlight, is the Head Girl, hugging her three younger brothers and the red-headed twins, before moving towards a couple of a flaming redhead and messy raven haired man.

He stops, dead in his tracks, and quickly backs behind the corner he has just turned, eavesdropping on the family of eight as they await their graduate with open arms.

"There she is!" he hears the man exclaim, and he wants to retch at the pride exerted in his tone, "Our head girl!"

She laughs and rolls her eyes, "Shut up dad, it wasn't that big of deal!"

"That speech! And almost all O's on your NEWTs!" He cups her face and looks her in the eye, "We couldn't be more proud of you Gracie."

He is ready to move from behind the corner and leave the disgusting display of affection and misplaced egoism, when a voice he has only dreamed about hearing speaks.

"My love," she smiles softly, tucking a hair behind the young girl's ear.

He wants to cry. He wants to run to her and beg her forgiveness, this beautiful angel of light who is willingly giving her love.

And then he watched, dumbstruck, and horrified, as she turns to scold her youngest son. And there, as the wind blows her skirts of her dress robes, is the smallest of bumps, barely noticeable, but a bump nonetheless.

"Mum," she gasps, shifting the flowers gifted to her by the teachers and reaching out to touch the bump, "What have I missed since Christmas?"

Her father grins, "Number seven."

Her mother smiles back, bright as the sun, "The Potter family Quidditch team did need another Chaser."

The brother who he constantly wants to 'Avada' speaks, "Yeah because it's like beating a dead horse to get this one to fly fast enough to score a goal."

"Oi!", cries James, reaching to headlock his oldest boy. He imagines from his dark corner ringing the boy's neck for real.

"Oi, enough the two of you," the angel reprimands gently, eyes shining with mirth as bright as the moon.

The boys brake apart. "Sorry mum," the boy replies, a smile ever-present.

"Sorry love," the man wraps an arm around her waist and obnoxiously sticks his face close to hers.

Her eyes crinkle with silent laughter and the side of her mouth quirks up in an effort to conserve her amusement. But she smiles, a wonderful, blissfully happy smile, and moves her face a little closer to his.

He just manages to hear the words tumble out of her mouth from his hiding spot, in a hushed, intimate, blissfully whispered tone.

"You're forgiven."

And then he runs. He runs as fast as his legs will carry him, away from the image of the perfect family, shining like stars, lighting up the darkness. He runs from her words, from his biggest desire, which he has watched be given to so many but himself.

He runs because he knows, he knows he does not deserve her forgiveness, he knows he will not be satiated with her forgiveness even if he could earn it, and he knows her forgiveness and her love will always be with someone else.

He runs because he has lost Lily's kindness not once but twice, in both Lily and her daughter.

* * *

Hello my lovely readers! I am really proud of this piece and i think it shares a lot about my opinion of each character through some underlying tones.

I do have some other things in the works but I can't promise when or if they will be out but please stay tuned.

Please r&r and share with your friends in forums because it would really mean the world! Thanks so much for reading!

XX,

Emily


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